What a difference a night makes! The night before was the disaster of La Traviata and tonight was an well done, well sung, well performed production of Madama Butterfly. Even the orchestra sounded like they had heard of the piece before! For my money, Patricia Racette is an amazing soprano but a little long in the tooth to be in this role. My opera companion suggested she had recently developed a vibrato recently and it showed in this role. However, let me point out she sang the next night in Showboat and her voice was probably pretty well worked over.

Brain Jagde was excellent as Pinkerton, so much so that he received a few boos at the end when everyone took their bows. He really got into the role of the ugly American.

The cast was excellent and the set design was by Jun Kaneko of Omaha who had done the set for The Magic Flute. The set was minimal but interesting and worked exceptionally well. This is my third performance of Madama Butterfly and it still moves you with the death scene.